ONE Weekend 2013

WOW!!!!!!! This past weekend had a major impact on me, to say the least!

So, let me give you an insight to what ONE weekend is. Youth students grades 6-12 are the only ones that attend. It is a weekend for them to worship, praise, learn the word all while having a BLAST! Obviously, the devil was working overtime this weekend to try to make it as hard on all of us as he could. Brett and I signed up to be a "support family" meaning we would give the kids rides back and forth to the house they stayed in. Also, we had to supply and make breakfast and dinner Saturday night. We thought no biggie we have this! Holy smokes! So, let me start at Friday night and go from there.

Friday I was SO excited, pumped and ready to go! Only to get a text from Brett at about 4:45 pm (mind you we were supposed to be at the church by 5 pm) saying that he got a nail in his tire. Ok well easy fix go to WM and have them patch it. Right? WRONG!!!!! The tire was in the exact spot where they couldn't patch it, go figure. So Brett was stuck at home :( The devil was TRYING to win.... Needless to say he LOST :) So, Friday night also consisted of us taking the luggage to the "host home" mind you there were 9 6th grade girls so they had A LOT of luggage ;) I hated the fact that Brett was at home and not enjoying this! However, I scrambled up some help and was able to find someone to help transport the girls and got to pick Brett up and he was able to enjoy the rest of the weekend with us. Friday night nothing real crazy happened we met the family we would be supporting and they turned out to be really, super nice and cool! We clicked right away! Now on to the good stuff!

Saturday was a crazy-fun-exciting-moving-exhausting day! So, Brett and I had to be over to the "host house" by 7:45ish to start breakfast. ONE weekend all revolved around a schedule and we tried our best to follow it. On the menu, was pancakes, sausage and scrambled eggs, it was a hit for the girls! They had to be back at church around 9:30ish to begin their full-crazy-activity-filled day and it was exhausting HAHA!! To start the day they had a service to attend, Brett and I decided to stay and listen and worship with the girls. The band (Refuge) and the preacher (Bob Witte) were both AMAZING!!! Bob is from the college of the Ozarks and man he was inspiring. Then, at 11:30 was lunch (Brett and I left to run errands and eat lunch) which by the way we made a total for 5 trips to Wal-Mart that day... HAHA! We come back to the church and the students are in a race which consisted of the following activites: One girl would stand on a chair blind folded and the other girl would lay on the ground with a cup in her mouth and they had .The teams had an assortment of condiments like ketchup, mustard, ranch and whatnot... As you can imagine it was ALL OVER the kids face HAHA! Next, they had a blour of flour and it there was a piece of gum they had to put their face in the flour and get the gum with no hands. Then, they had to drink a 2 liter of Dr. Pepper, sounds easy enough, only catch was they had to use someones sock that they were wearing and put it over the top of the bottle and drink through the sock.... LOL... Also, one girl had to chew up tootsie rolls and someone else on the team had to mold the chewed up tootsie roll into the Statue of Liberty. It was gross!!!! Our girls didn't win, but they had a blast! Then it time to head home, clean up and eat dinner. We did a taco bar it was delish!!!! Of course, it was time to head back to church about 7 pm. Brett and I dropped the girls off and headed home because the girls were going to be ready to be picked up until about 1 am. Later that night at about 11 pm was scheduled to be a talent show and Brett and I really wanted to watch, so we went back to the church at about 10:30 pm. Walking through those doors I had no idea what I was about to witness would bring me to tears and know that no matter how tired I was, how much money went into this weekend and the miles we put on my car it was ALL worth it. Peeking in the door I saw ALL the kids bowed down before a cross. I immediately begin crying, it touched my heart like it had NEVER been touched before. That imagine will forever be stored in my head. I was speechless. I finally was able to get inside the room. The Holy Spirit was SO strong in that room, God's presence wasn't even questionable and moved so many teenagers that night. Right then I knew youth ministry was the direction I wanted to go. So, I talked to the Director over youth ministry and I will start my journey this week. I am so thrilled and know this is my calling. Later that night, to end ONE weekend, of course we had a RAVE, how else would you end this amazing weekend?!?! LaCrae started blaring, glow sticks starting being thrown around and kids started moving! It was amazing!!! Later on our way to take the kids to their "host house" Brett and I were excited to hear the girls' thoughts on the night. The first thing they said was "It brought me to tears, and I'm not much of a crier." I know God touched those sweet, innocent girls that night. I know He drew them in, I know He "lead them to the cross" and I have no doubts they were well on their way to be deeper followers. THAT made this entire thing ALL worth it.

Sunday morning we go get the girls' for the last service we would attend together. Bittersweet was my feeling that entire morning. As the sang worship together I seen their little arms fly up and praise Him. Tears were falling from some of their eyes, I knew God was still strong and they were still embraced by Him.

This weekend was simply amazing and I'm counting down the days until ONE weekend next year.....